Congo leaders reach peace accord with rebels

U.N. will establish buffer zone to help enforce a cease-fire

January 22, 2008|By LYDIA POLGREEN The New York Times

DAKAR, Senegal — Congo's government reached an agreement Monday with a renegade general to end an insurgency that has forced more than 450,000 from their homes in the volatile east of the country in the past year and threatened to unravel the country's new democratically elected government, according to Congolese officials and Western diplomats involved in the negotiations.

Under the terms of the agreement, which was completed Monday and is expected to be signed today after nearly two weeks of difficult negotiations in the eastern city of Goma, the government and the rebel troops will withdraw from some of their positions and U.N. peacekeeping forces will establish a buffer zone.

A commission made up of Congolese officials and experts from the United States, European Union and African Union, will oversee the integration of the rebel troops into the national army and the enforcement of a permanent cease-fire.

The rebels will also be granted amnesty on insurrection charges, which would have carried the death penalty, but they could still face charges for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The agreement will also apply to other militias operating in eastern Congo.

The conflict between the Congolese government and a rebel army led by Laurent Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi general, was part of the deadly legacy of the Rwandan genocide, the event that ensnared Congo in a vast regional conflict that began in 1996 and has limped on to the present despite a peace agreement formally ending the war in Congo in 2003.

The Congo war and its aftermath have killed, according to some estimates, more than 4 million people, mostly due to disease and hunger, more than any conflict since World War II.

"The agreement has really been forged in the face of immense suffering of the people of eastern Congo," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher of Human Rights Watch, who was in Goma to observe the negotiations. "What needs to happen is all sides adhere to what they have signed so we see an end to the suffering."

Joseph Kabila, Congo's president, was under enormous pressure to defeat Nkunda militarily. Many Congolese blame Nkunda for the horrors that have plagued North Kivu, the last remaining war zone in a country that has suffered through more than a decade of regional conflict.

But a military assault on Nkunda's positions in December ended in a humiliating defeat for the Congolese army, which was forced to flee positions it had taken from Nkunda's men just days earlier, leaving a trail of empty water bottles, sardine cans and ammunition cartons.

Kabila and Nkunda were also under intense pressure to reach agreement from Western allies, who have spent billions of dollars on aid, peacekeeping and organizing an election in Congo, with the United States in particular playing a crucial role.